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A photo taken on September 22, 2014 shows an Ocean Freedom dive instructor diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The 2,300-kilometer long reefs contribute $ 5.4 billion annually to the Australian economy through tourism, fishing and scientific research, while creating 67 000 jobs, according to government data. According to an Australian government report released in August, the outlook for the world's largest living structure is "mediocre", with climate change posing the biggest threat to the vast coral reef ecosystem. (AFP PHOTO / William WEST)
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(AFP) – Scientists have launched the biggest regeneration attempt of all time coral on the great barrier endangered Reef by harvesting millions of eggs and sperm during their annual spawning.
The researchers announced Wednesday their intention to grow coral the larvae of the harvested eggs and return them to areas of the reef which have been badly damaged by the climate coral laundering.
"This is the first time that the entire large-scale breeding and larval settlement process is undertaken directly on the reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. Reef, "said Peter Harrison of Southern Cross University, one of the project leaders.
"Our team will restore hundreds of square meters in order to reach square kilometers in the future, a scale never tried before," he said in a statement.
The launch of the "Larval Restoration Project" was planned to coincide with the coral spawn on the reef, which started earlier this week and will only last about 48 to 72 hours.
coral along wide bands of 2300 kilometers (1400 miles) reef were killed by rising sea temperatures related to climate change, leaving behind skeletal remains in a process called coral laundering.
North of the reef have suffered two successive years of severe money laundering in 2016 and 2017, raising fears of irreparable damage.
Harrison and his colleagues hope that their reseeding project will help reverse the trend, but warned that the effort alone would not save the reef.
"Climate action is the only way to ensure coral reefs can survive in the future, "he said.
"Our approach to reef restoration aims to save time for coral populations to survive and evolve until emissions are capped and our climate stabilizes. "
Scientists hope that coral who have survived the bleaching have a greater tolerance to rising temperatures, so that a breeding population from this year's spawning will become coral better able to survive future whitening events.
The researchers, who also include experts from James Cook University and the Sydney University of Technology (UTS), said that a novelty of their reseeding project was to develop coral larvae with microscopic algae. Both live in symbiosis on the reef.
"So we are aiming to accelerate this process to see if the rapid absorption of algae can boost the survival and early growth of juvenile corals," said David Suggett of UTS.
© Agence France-Presse
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